Small Feminist Acts: My Letter to Entertainment Weekly

In my feminist theories class, we talk about how to do everyday acts of feminism in order to make greater change. We can’t change the world individually, but if we all step up and take action when we can, real change happens. So with that in mind (and remembering Lisa’s act to write to Barnes and Noble last year), here’s what I emailed to Entertainment Weekly this morning:

“As a longtime reader of Entertainment Weekly, I often applaud your writers’ choices to question sexism in all areas of popular culture. Given this, I am so often dismayed and angered by the Bullseye’s continual use of sexism and transphobia in its reporting. Almost every week has an example of a person on the far outside of the bullseye being mocked for his or her refusal to adhere to a sexist performance of traditional gender. You can be creative about how you call out people like Justin Bieber for their performances of fame without gender shaming them. As for transmen like Chas Bono and gay men like Johnny Weir, either put them further into the Bullseye and praise their efforts to be their authentic selves, or leave them off altogether. Entertainment Weekly is better than this.”

Whether the letter is published or not remains to be seen, but either way this issue has been bothering me for some time and I wanted to take action. What small feminist actions have you taken lately?